Chapter 8
Emily stood in
the doorway looking at the destruction in her living room. Somehow
it appeared even worse in the cold, hard light of day. She had
decorated this room with the same loving attention with which she
had decorated the entire cottage. The project had helped save her
sanity in the days after Stuart’s death and her recuperation from
the surgeries. Almost everything could be replaced, even the pair
of Staffordshire dogs that Grammy had given her as a Christmas
gift. But the replacements would never be the same.
Turning around and leaving the wreckage
behind her, Emily made her way to the kitchen, where fresh coffee
was brewing. She’d set the machine shortly after Mitch had left to
run home for a shower and shave. She poured herself a mug of
Southern Pecan coffee, then nudged open the back door and went out
onto the porch that wrapped all the way around the
cottage.
As she strolled along the porch,
Emily’s thoughts returned to last night. To the anger and fear
she’d experienced when she realized someone had broken into her
home. To the desperate need to protect herself and to punish the
culprit. And to the sense of safety and peace she’d found
throughout the night as she lay in Mitch’s arms.
Come what may, she didn’t have to face
it alone. Whoever was behind the phone calls, the notes, this
break-in, they would have to bear Mitch’s wrath. No matter what lay
ahead, Mitch would be at her side. Mitch would help her find out
who had broken into her home, and Mitch would make
sure...
Mitch. Mitch. Mitch. Emily sat down in
the wooden rocker on the side porch, sipping her coffee and
smiling. She had been falling for the man since the day they met,
but last night she had toppled over the edge and fallen head over
heels in love with him. She’d never known the feelings she
experienced during the hours they sat together, his arms draped
lovingly around her, the two of them alone on her chaise longue.
His understanding, his comfort, his gentle care had taught her that
she could give her heart to this man and he would cherish it. She
could trust Mitch. She could count on him to be there for
her.
When other men might have pressured her
for sex, when other men might have taken advantage of her
vulnerability last night, Mitch had known exactly what to say and
do to help her through the traumatic experience. His every thought
had been for her happiness and well-being. In her heart of hearts,
she knew the day would come when she would trust Mitch enough to
show him her back, and he would not turn away from
her.
For the first time in five long years,
she had hope for the future—a future with Mitch.
When Emily heard the car coming up the
drive, she stood and walked down the steps to meet her best friend.
Nikki ran up the stepping-stones walkway that led from the drive to
the porch. Throwing her arms around Emily, Nikki hugged her
close.
“Thank God, you’re all right. When
Mitch phoned this morning to tell me what had happened, I wanted to
strangle the SOB who broke into your house. The police are going to
have to do something. This has gone beyond phone calls and
letters!”
Emily led Nikki up the steps and onto
the porch. “Calm down. The police have no evidence against anyone.
They can hardly arrest someone without proof of
guilt.”
“They need to question Charles Tolbert
and maybe even Rod Simmons.”
“I can’t believe either of them would
break into my home and cause all this destruction,” Emily said. “I
could possibly see either one of them making the phone calls or
writing the letters, but not wreaking havoc in my
house.”
“Then who?” Nikki asked.
“I don’t know.”
Nikki glanced toward the front door.
“Is Mitch still at his house? When I talked to him he told me that
he’d spent the night here with you.”
With her arm draped through Nikki’s,
Emily led her around the porch. “We didn’t sleep together last
night, if that’s what you’re wondering. Well, actually we did, but
we didn’t do anything. Well, we did. We talked. But nothing
happened. No, that’s not true, either. Something did
happen.”
Grabbing Emily by the shoulders, Nikki
shook her. “Stop babbling. You’re not making any
sense.”
Emily smiled. “Mitch held me in his
arms all night. We lay on the chaise in my bedroom. We talked and
talked. Well, mostly I talked and Mitch listened. And we fell
asleep like that.”
Nikki released her hold on Emily,
shaking her head from side to side. “You’re in love with him,
aren’t you? I mean all the way in love with him.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Oh, Em. Did y’all get around to
confessing your secrets to each other last night, the way you told
me y’all were going to do?”
“After the break-in, last night didn’t
seem the appropriate time.” Emily led Nikki into the kitchen. “He’s
coming back over for breakfast. I was going to clean up the mess in
the living room, but Mitch said my insurance agent wouldn’t want us
to bother anything until the adjuster came out and took a look at
the damage.”
Nikki pulled down a mug from the rack
hanging beneath one of the white cabinets and poured herself a cup
of coffee, then added two teaspoons of sugar. “Em, I want you to
promise me that you’ll tell Mitch about what happened to you. About
being burned in the fire that killed Stuart. And ask him about his
past. You need to know.”
“Nikki, I don’t understand why you’ve
been so persistent about my telling Mitch about my past and about
my finding out every detail of his life. After all, what difference
does it make? I’m in love with him, no matter what sort of life he
lived before we met.”
“What if he’s—”
Mitch knocked at the back door. Nikki
jumped. Emily turned and smiled. He opened the door and walked into
the kitchen.
“Good morning again.” Slipping his arm
around Emily’s waist, he pulled her close and kissed her cheek. He
turned and smiled at Nikki. “Hi, Nikki. Are you having breakfast
with us?”
“Uh...I don’t know.” Nikki widened her
eyes in a questioning pose as she looked at Emily.
“Yes, she’s having breakfast with us.”
Emily opened the refrigerator, pulled out a carton of eggs and
handed it to Mitch. “You promised to fix me an
omelette.”
“So I did.” Mitch took the eggs, then
told Emily what other ingredients he’d need to prepare his one and
only culinary speciality—a western omelette.
All the while he was showing Emily how
proficient he was in the kitchen, he felt Nikki watching him, her
hazel eyes filled with a look that Mitch finally decided was
suspicion. Why was Nikki Griffin suspicious of him? Had she figured
out who he was? If so, why hadn’t she told Emily?
During breakfast and the cleanup
following, Emily didn’t seem to notice how oddly her friend was
behaving, but Mitch was well aware of Nikki’s scrutiny. He realized
that he couldn’t put off telling Emily the truth. If he didn’t tell
her first, and if Nikki did know, she was sure to tell
her.
“Let’s take our coffee and go out on
the porch,” Emily said. “It’s a perfect day for sitting
outside.”
“I can’t stay.” Nikki grabbed her purse
off the countertop. “You two need some privacy to
talk.”
“You just got here,” Emily
said.
“What do you think Emily and I need to
talk about?” Mitch asked.
“Oh, Nikki’s got herself in a snit
because we still don’t know a lot about each other,” Emily said.
“She’s worried about me because she doesn’t trust men and she’s not
sure I should trust you.”
“Em, could I talk to Mitch for a few
minutes? Alone?” Nikki asked, then tossed her purse on the
table.
“Oh, for goodness sakes. First you’re
leaving so Mitch and I can talk and now you’re staying to talk to
him yourself.” Emily threw up her hands in disgust, then lifted her
coffee mug and stood. “I’ll go sit on the porch and rock and look
at the bay, but you make this little talk quick and don’t you dare
say anything unkind to Mitch.”
The moment the back door closed behind
Emily, Nikki turned to Mitch, who still sat at the kitchen table.
“Your name isn’t Ray Mitchell, is it? You’re M. R. Hayden, the guy
who owned half of Styles and Hayden Construction
Company.”
Mitch’s stomach clenched; a sour taste
coated his tongue. This was what he’d feared—that someone else
would find out his true identity before he revealed himself to
Emily. “How long have you known?”
“Fowler Jordan came to my house late
last night It seems that when Emily mentioned you to him, that you
were her neighbor and she liked you—liked you a lot—Fowler hired a
private investigator to find out about you. It didn’t take the PI
long to discover who you really are. Just a few phone calls. The
guy brought Fowler his report last night and then Fowler came to
see me.”
“My God, is he in the habit of having
every man Emily meets investigated?”
“There haven’t been any men in Emily’s
life since Stuart died. Unless you count Charles Tolbert. And
Fowler handpicked Charles for Emily. Your coming into Emily’s life
sort of messed up Fowler’s plans.”
“Why would Jordan come to you?” Mitch
asked. “I thought Emily said that he didn’t like you.”
“He doesn’t. But he knows I love Emily
like a sister. He wanted me to be here today, to be here for Emily,
when he told her who you are.”
“Nikki, give me a chance to explain—”
Mitch spread out his hands across the table, his palms open,
beseeching her.
“You cannot imagine how much Emily lost
and how terribly she’s suffered. How could you, of all people,
cause her even more pain?”
“I didn’t want to tell Emily about my
past until we became better acquainted. I wanted her to know the
real Mitch Hayden before she judged me based on the man I used to
be.” Mitch took a deep breath.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve
done?” Tears filled Nikki’s eyes. “You know who Emily is. You’ve
known all along. You deliberately sought her out, didn’t
you?”
“Yes, I know who Emily is, and yes, I
sought her out. I hadn’t intended to wait so long to tell her who I
am. But once I met her, once I found myself caring for her...” He
looked directly at Nikki and noted a combination of anger and pity
in her eyes. “I’ve spent five years hating myself, punishing myself
for what happened. Zed Banning realized that I was killing myself
by slow degrees. He brought me back to the Gulf to face the past
and start all over again.”
“My God, Zed Banning knows who you are,
who Emily is, and he didn’t try to stop you!”
“No one could have stopped me from
finding Emily and making sure she was all right. Can’t you
understand how important it was to me to try, in some way, to make
things right for her?”
“Make it right for her?” Nikki stared
at him, an incredulous look on her face. “Are you out of your mind?
Your construction firm was responsible for her husband’s death, for
her unborn child’s death and for her—And you walked into her life
and made her fall in love with you. How could you have done
something so cruel?”
“Nikki, please understand. I need
Emily’s forgiveness. I need—”
“You need! You need! What about what
Emily needs? She needs to be loved, not used. Once she finds out
the truth, she’ll be devastated. She’ll hate you. She’ll never
forgive you. Never!”
His Emily. His beautiful, sweet, loving
Emily would hate him? She would never forgive him? Of course she
would hate him and never forgive him. If he’d been honest with
himself, he would have known all along how this would turn
out.
Mitch closed his eyes against the pain,
trying to blot out the rage inside him. Perspiration broke out on
his face. His palms moistened with sweat.
“I’ll tell her the truth myself, if
you’ll let me.”
“I wish she never had to know,” Nikki
said. “Tell me this, Mitch, are you the one?”
“The one what?”
“The one who’s made all the phone
calls, sent all the letters? Are you the one who wrecked her living
room?”
“How the hell could I have wrecked
Emily’s living room when I was with her when it happened? We had a
date, remember?”
“Maybe you hired somebody to break into
her house while you were with her. So you’d have an alibi. So no
one would suspect you.”
“Nikki, just listen to yourself. You’re
not making any sense.” Every muscle in Mitch’s body tightened
painfully at the thought Emily might believe her friend’s frantic
ravings. “What motive would I have? I came into Emily’s life to
help her, not hurt her. I want to take care of her, to make amends
for the past. I’d never hurt her. Please believe me.”
Nikki glowered at Mitch, her eyes
narrowing to slits. “You have to tell her who you are. Today. Right
now.”
“Thank you,” he said, his voice a
ragged whisper.
Mitch stood up, walked to the back
door, opened it and went out onto the porch. When he didn’t find
Emily, he made his way around the porch to the front of the
cottage.
A small, slender man, with thinning
gray hair approached Emily with open arms. Fowler Jordan! Mitch
would never forget the man’s face as long as he lived. Stuart
Jordan’s uncle had come to the courtroom every day of the trial. He
had stared at Mitch, his gaze filled with loathing.
Emily greeted her uncle warmly, readily
going into his embrace. “Uncle Fowler, what are you doing
here?”
“Nikki called me this morning and told
me what had happened.” Fowler slipped his arm around Emily’s waist.
“You shouldn’t have stayed here alone last night. I wish you had
telephoned me. I would have driven over immediately and taken you
home. You know your room is always ready. I haven’t changed a thing
since you moved out.”
“By the time the police left, it was
awfully late.” Emily clasped Fowler’s hand in hers. “Besides, I
wasn’t alone last night.”
“When Nikki phoned, she didn’t mention
that she’d stayed with you.”
“Nikki didn’t stay with me.” Emily
hesitated, fearing her uncle would overreact to the news that Ray
Mitchell had spent the night with her. “Mitch stayed with
me.”
“My God, girl, you let that man stay
here...” Fowler’s face flushed. “He could have murdered you in your
sleep. He could have—”
“You’re getting upset over nothing.”
Emily squeezed Fowler’s trembling hand. “Mitch is not the person
who’s been harassing me.”
“I believe he is.” Fowler turned,
grasped Emily’s shoulders and looked directly into her eyes. “There
are things about that man you don’t know.”
“What things?” Emily
asked.
“I’ve been making inquiries about this
Ray Mitchell and—”
“Oh, Uncle Fowler, you had no right to
do that.”
Mitch jumped when the back door slammed
shut. He turned his head. Nikki came up behind him.
“‘Ray Mitchell’ is an alias,” Fowler
said.
Every muscle in Mitch’s body stiffened.
His heartbeat accelerated, the drumming roar pounding inside his
head. Fowler Jordan was going to tell Emily exactly who Ray
Mitchell was and there wasn’t a damn thing Mitch could do to stop
him.
“What do you mean ‘Ray Mitchell’ is an
alias?” Emily asked.
“The man you’ve been dating is not the
man you think he is,” Fowler told her.
Mitch’s stomach knotted painfully. He
knew what was going to happen. Nikki’s small hand closed around
Mitch’s arm. Her nails bit into his flesh.
“This Mitch you’re so smitten with is
Mitchell Ray Hayden. M. R. Hayden of Styles and Hayden Construction
Company.” Fowler cleared his throat. “I’m so very sorry, my
dear.”
“What?” All the color drained from
Emily’s face. “What did you say?”
“I realize that this Hayden fellow
didn’t actually kill our Stuart, but—”
“Please, Emily...honey...please let me
explain.” Mitch stepped around the corner of the porch. Nikki
followed close behind him.
Jerking her whole body around in one
trembling move, Emily stared at Mitch. “You’re M. R.
Hayden?”
“Dammit! I didn’t want you to find out
this way.” Mitch’s eyes pleaded with her.
“You’ve changed a great deal, Hayden.”
Fowler Jordan focused his heated glare on Mitch. “I’m not sure I
would have recognized you. Not at first, anyway. But the detective
I hired to investigate you gave me irrevocable proof of your
identity.”
“You hired a detective to investigate
Mitch?” Emily asked.
“My instincts told me that this new
neighbor of yours couldn’t be trusted, that he might well be your
tormentor,” Fowler said. “I think I’ve been proven correct.
Mitchell Hayden set out to deliberately deceive you.” Fowler
grasped Emily’s chin, forcing her to look at him. “I am so very
sorry, dear child. I should have found a way to protect you
from—”
“I didn’t mean to deceive you!” Mitch
said, knowing he had to defend himself before Emily’s uncle
convinced her that he was truly a monster. “I had intended to tell
you when we first met, but I couldn’t.” Mitch took a tentative step
toward Emily, then stopped when she backed away from
him.
“Are you really M. R. Hayden?” The
warmth in Emily’s brown eyes died, turning her stare into a frozen
glimmer.
“Yes, I’m Mitchell Ray Hayden. I was
once co-owner of Styles and Hayden Construction Company,” Mitch
admitted, and when he saw the look on Emily’s face, he wished more
fervently than he’d ever wished before that he could die on the
spot.
Emily quivered from head to toe. She
clutched the back of a nearby rocker.
“Emily,” Mitch said.
“Em,” Nikki said.
Emily closed her eyes. The pain was
more than she could bear, but bear it she would. Just a little
longer. “I trusted you. I believed I’d found someone I could love.
You let me care about you. You let me lie in your arms all night
and—”
“No, Emily, it can’t be true. You
didn’t sleep with this man!” Fowler swayed on his feet. He reached
out and grabbed the banister. “My God, Emily, how could you
have—”
“Shut up!” Nikki screamed. “She doesn’t
need your censor. Not now. She needs our love and
support.”
Mitch wanted to take Emily into his
arms and kiss away the pain he saw on her face. He wanted to
comfort her. His sweet Emily. No, not his Emily. She would never be
his Emily again.
Emily and Nikki and Mitch stood,
unmoving, on the porch. No one said a word. Then Fowler reached for
Emily. She shook her head. Fowler dropped his outstretched
hand.
“You must come home with me, dear,”
Fowler said. “I’ll take care of you and help you forget this ever
happened.”
Ignoring her uncle, Emily looked at
Mitch. “Please leave.”
“Emily, don’t do this to me,” Mitch
begged. “Don’t do this to us.”
“There is no us,” Emily said. “I fell
in love with a man who doesn’t exist. You’re not my Mitch, the
gentle, loving man who held me and comforted me last night.” Emily
choked back a sob. “You’re more a stranger to me now than you were
the day we met. Dear Lord, you’re M. R. Hayden. You killed Stuart.
You killed my baby!”
Emily balled her hands into fists. She
hated M. R. Hayden, but she loved Mitch. No, no, no! It wasn’t
fair! With blind fury, Emily lunged at Mitch, pounding her fists
into his solid chest. Again and again. She screamed at him, saying
over and over, “You killed Stuart. You killed my baby. You ruined
my life.”
Mitch stood there, allowing her to vent
her torment, taking every blow without feeling anything, taking
every word she spoke to heart, dying inch by inch as Emily
destroyed his last hope of redemption.